The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 89

was a deeply religious man in his devotion to the revolutionary theory that he took from the republican spirit of the Greeks, the Romans, the Italians, the French, the Germans, the Russians, even the white masters of early America. He spoke much of a man named Tom Paine, whom I have too little knowledge of to connect to what Lazarus did. Lazarus worshiped republicanism like a tireless pilgrim. He had dreams; he called them ideas. Was he a fanatic? Yes, but that seems an unfair word for a man like Lazarus, who acted so coolly, resolutely, clearheadedly. Israel taught me that there is no school absent of a little sleight-of-hand, mystical chicanery. So for Lazarus and his republican schools. I suggest that in Lazarus’s confession to me, the moment he proved his vision with the statement “I say so,” he was introducing a matter of faith-beyond-reason into the debate. Grandfather and Father Saint Stephen, clearly zealous men, believed in the coming Kingdom of Heaven. Lazarus believed in the coming revolution. What made Lazarus qualitatively distinct from Grandfather and Father Saint Stephen was that his utopianism, his millenarianism (at the birth of a new millennium), was informed by his specific, earthly, demonstrable belief in the idea of the Republic of South Georgia.

Lazarus was a dreamer and a builder. I pause to marvel that in saying this I describe an orphan, bastard, beastie, revolutionary, who was almost a theoretical combination of his foster-mother the dreamer and his foster-father the builder. Father Saint Stephen had wanted to enrich the future through mass suicide. Lazarus wanted to enrich the future through mass enfranchisement. I have shown that they both used history—what Lazarus sometimes called “the agenda of history”—to justify their conduct. Father Saint Stephen had failed because he was wrong. Lazarus might not have failed on South Georgia. What he needed was time and will and men fit for the times. We were that, in the very end, I and Lazarus, men fit for our times. God help me, the truth of it, Grim Fiddle was fit for his times. There was never enough time on South Georgia.

Our fate was fixed by the time Germanicus and Lazarus and I had our separate conversations on the future of South Georgia. The events that undid us seem now sadly trivial, a protracted blood feud, and yet the situation revealed the shadow that could not be enlightened. Lazarus and I, for all our learning and magic, were beasties to the South Georgians, and anyone who stood with us, loved us, became a beastie too.

It began with the stoning of Jane Gaunt, when she tried to visit the two wounded children in the hospital. The stone-throwers were wild children and hags, mostly old sealers’ widows. The Gaunts sought justice. Kevin Gaunt, Jane’s older brother, a hot-tempered man, sought blood justice. Elephant Frazer could not give it, for the ringleaders of the assailants were pathetically old, beyond punishment, their motives clouded by hysteria. After her recovery, Jane Gaunt spoke at church, forgiving her trespassers. Most were proud of her for it, and all assumed the wounds were healed. This is not to forget the trouble it caused Germanicus, and how the incident led indirectly to my election as president of the Assembly. It lingered in the hearts of the guilty also.

The following year, midwinter, the ice freezing our hearts, one of the meekest among us, Lena Rose, a younger half-sister of the Hospidar’s favorite, Christian Rose, was attacked on the high heath as she was walking up to feed her pet birds, albatross chicks. The attack was deranged, a knifing and possible ravishment, and the girl lost her senses. She might have been tortured. She was unable to name the criminal.

It was sadder still, because Lena had been born simple-minded and deformed. She was also a great favorite of the old wives of Gaunttown, some of whom were the hags who had attacked Jane Gaunt. More, Lena was often seen in the company of the other simpleton in Gaunttown, Robby Oldmizzen. The old wives had never liked this; the hags among them called Robby unclean and “demon-plagued.” Robby Oldmizzen was the very same young boy whom Germanicus had rescued at 2 de Diciembre. Through his great-grandmother (that old woman I carried to the longboats, who had died in Port Stanley), he was related to the Frazers. Robby had been tortured by the Patties and had lost his senses when he was forced to watch the Patties break his uncle on one of those wheels of theirs. This was significant, since it was believed by the old wives, and others who should have known better, that Robby was not simpleminded, that he was actually a mad dog, and dangerous. He had screaming fits, similar to the ones I experienced my first year on South Georgia; unfortunately, Robby had his in Gaunttown, not protected as I was by Longfaeroe and the Frazers, and Robby’s worsened as he got older. It was also believed that Robby was the one who, in my third year on the island, had lashed a ewe to a wheel and tortured it with a harpoon.

Lena had been born with an overlarge head, crooked limbs, and a severe limp. Robby’s limp was from paralysis brought on by torture. They limped about together. They shared weak minds. There had been vulgar talk of a romance between them. That was ridiculous. Lena seemed as innocent a creature as I have ever known, a lamb. Robby seemed too absorbed by his nightmares to have been able to concentrate erotically. Nevertheless, the suspicion was there, and I cannot deny that Robby loved Lena in his way, and she him. They were a delight to many of us, to me, and I often regretted that I did not find more time for them when, as a shepherd, I had visited the market square where they played. Robby and Lena were also usually among the few who attended the assemblies Lazarus and I