The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 105

le Docteur was partly educated, no university doctor, more likely a half-breed who had worked at a clinic. He was guileful, seemed well-fed, wore good boots and filthy clothes, had a woozy laugh. He asked, were we South Africans?

The fake priest, Raul, most likely a runaway from a monastery, said that he and some parishioners had been chased out of Fort-de-France by pirates, had purchased their way onto a boat only to have the captain desert them. He later said he had fled an epidemic. He was about to admit that it was plague, was jarred by Monsieur le Docteur, added they had seen plague in Brazil, had stayed clear. When they saw we balked at this, Monsieur le Docteur elaborated, telling of blockades, quarantines, mass deaths, warships sweeping through refugee ships sinking any boat with sickness. Of note, Raul was frightened of Wild Drumrul unusually, called him le Maure, and when questioned about this said that he had heard Moslems were slaughtering Christians off Africa. Neither of them mentioned America. When we asked, they hung their heads, said the Americans were a great people, were we Americans?

In sum, the two Frenchmen were full of lies, and when they did not deliberately lie, they confused what they had seen with what they thought we wanted to hear. They had advanced faculties to say and to do whatever it took to stay alive. They were wretched, probably killers, but they fought. They wanted ‘us to take them along with us. We asked, all of them? Monsieur le Docteur said no, only those strong enough to make it through. This was our first hint that they had a destination.

“Where bound?” said Indigo Zulema in Spanish.

Monsieur le Docteur tensed, spoke French, then English. “The relief camps.”

“Camps of the church,” said Raul in Spanish.

The Negro asked for another smoke, spoke Portuguese, pointing. Motherwell gave it to him, told him to speak plain.

“South,” he said in Spanish, pointing.

We recoiled, looked at each other. At that, Monsieur le Docteur and Raul opened up and rambled, as if our incredulity threatened their shaky but bright hope and they had to convert us immediately and totally to their fantasy. They overlapped each other in French, Portuguese, Spanish, broken English. What emerged was irrational and compelling: relief camps, church camps, food, clothing, Americans, Europeans, relocation centers, mercy ships, resettlement to Australia, America, Alaska. They stressed repeatedly that they did not mean the arctique, instead islands off the coast of Antarctica.

“Them’re lyin’, plain,” said Motherwell.

“Where’d them hear it?” asked Davey Gaunt.

“Shoot one, them’ll tell,” said Motherwell.

Indigo Zulema said that the fat one, Raul, said that the priests knew about the camps, and that the fathers at Fort-de-France had known, and that the church would save those that got through the pirates and the plague.

“It is a lie,” I said.

“Them’ll say Hell’s froze to save their skins,” said Motherwell.

“They’re not lying,” I said. I had Indigo Zulema interrogate them again, from their embarkation—this time it was Brazil—to their landfalls on the continent, the pirates, the sweeps, the storms, their landing on Mead’s Kiss after they were turned away from East Falkland by gunboats. They said they knew nothing of the bodies in the ravine or the corpses in the weather station. We listened again to their vision of the relief camps, “les camps de secours.” Raul repeated, “les camps catholiques”; he added also “les camps glaces” or the ice camps. They portrayed an ever more fetching scene: dormitories, clinics, transportation to new countries welcoming refugees. They believed by then that we were ignorant of the camps and that we wanted to join the exodus, so they tried to make it as attractive as possible, hoping we would take them with us. Thus, as we asked more questions, they got farther from what they knew, pathetic as it was, and we got farther from discovering where they could have heard such stories. What they said sounded fabulous. However, in their mouths and eyes, it seemed available, a genuine release. They proselytized a heaven on earth.

I walked away. It was their fear that made them convincing. I took in the stench of bodies, corpses, mud. I turned toward the wind. I regained my balance and purpose. I found Grandfather’s marker, that same weathered, convex gray boulder he had stood me up against just before I had left him almost six years before. It backed on the weather station. A small female crouched there, fell down trying to flee me. I reached out to help, thought better, shooed her away. Grandfather’s rock was his temperament, a giant stone tablet. I remembered it clean of markings; now it was covered with pitiable graffiti: names, initials, curses, dates scratched in many languages, scratched with knives, stones, hearts—all that was left to tell the tale of the thousands who had passed there.

Across the center, at what was my line of sight, were thick, well-cut letters. The message, “fiddle februari 98.”

I touched the letters, felt nothing. No, I felt very tired. Looking up, I noted smaller letters above, not obvious at first, something one would only note by accident, or luck. I reached as high as I could, brushed away black dust—fallout from the volcanoes—and found “m fiddle 11/96 60w.”

It was lighting up by then. There were shots from the hillside above me. In the surprise, one of the pirates got a pistol and shot one of my men. Indigo Zulema fired wildly in defense. Monsieur le Docteur and Raul, sure we would kill them, tried to control their men, were shot down for it. There was more fire from the ridge, an attack from another encampment. We were off at a run. The Negro ran with us. At the waterline, while Davey Gaunt set fire to the trawler and Motherwell set our perimeter, the Negro became crazed, crawling, begging in Spanish, “Save me! I know the way!” In the dawn mist the skirmish was a draw. We might have been trapped; the absence of an enemy commander