The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 98

never stronger, the smell of brine and insoluble melancholy in the air. I did not laugh. Young Grim Fiddle did not have the stomach he had later, has now. There was no humor that day, if there was comedy. There was also revelation. Standing there, watching Jane Gaunt kiss her mother good-bye, no tears, anger in her eyes, hatred mixed with impossible remorse, I came to understand at long last what it was that we on board Angel of Death had discovered in the Baltic, the North Sea, the Atlantic. I came to understand that this was how the outrage had begun in every port, on every archipelago, on every continent. Catastrophe and fear and feud had delivered up peoples who could no longer live together. The solution, the sophists might say, is to learn to live together. That is fancy optimism, I say, worthy but not rigorous, because there are times and places when and where it cannot be. On South Georgia that day, I saw that the Hospidar was keen and bold and correct. He could not permit me and mine to remain on South Georgia. We had to be sent away. I saw the nakedness of it. I saw what it is to be right and wrong all at once. I saw the risk and the penalty, for, while I and mine were free to try not to be consumed with hatred, the Hospidar and his people would forever bear the burden of their cruelty toward us. To us, the Hospidar was a monster, but was not he also a dupe? To his people, the Hospidar was a savior, but was not he also a liar? We might disappear from their sight, but would not the memory of us, our ghosts, visit curses upon them generation upon generation? We weighed anchor and set our course northeast for Africa. Who could ever lift the weight of us from them on that shore? And one more thing I saw that day. I saw what it was to become what we were, sails full, bows pointed toward the sunrise: new members of the fleet of the damned.

My Albatross

I MUST pause for my Sam. He would be well over thirty, older than I was when I left him. I cannot know if he survived the fire and his abandonment. It pleases me to suppose that he did. He had red hair at birth, and chestnut eyes, same as Abigail’s. What I could know of what was Grim Fiddle in him I determined by comparing him to Gabe and Adam, Abigail’s two sons by Samson. My Sam was longer-limbed, not lean, more barrel-like, with heart-shaped ears. Those were Peregrine’s ears. And that bushy red hair—my guess was that Sam had reached back to Peregrine’s mother, Jane. Sam was nearly two years old when I last saw him, the day before Germanicus’s wedding. He was large, aggressive, ran as much as walked, had a passing peculiar vocabulary, Scots-English, Swedish, a few Hebrew words Longfaeroe slipped in when he had visited the Frazer camp knowing Abigail was in town visiting me. I should have more detail of him, and that I do not should indicate what an inattentive father I was—much away at the Assembly Hall, or fretting with Germanicus, or hiking the high heath with Christmas Muir and Wild Drumrul. At the time, I justified my absences by thinking they were caused by the strained affairs between me and Abigail; I told myself I would be a better father as soon as Abigail married me. That was delusion. Of consequence, it is not credible that Sam, if he lived, could have much memory of me. He would have the stories of Dolly Frazer, if she lived; about Abigail and Frazers; and he would have the stories of Orlando the Black, if he lived; about America, Sweden, the Falklands. At most, he would have pieces of the puzzle of his father, not enough to understand why I left him to his fate. I did abandon him, no fancy argument shall remove my shame. If I could talk with him, I might be able to explain. That is impossible. There is this work of confession; if I could get it to him—but then, not even I can know its end. There is one hope. It is nonrational. I record it for comfort. As I inherited some of Lamba’s magic, perhaps Sam also inherited an extraordinary sense. Perhaps my ghost, when it comes to that, can seek him out and whisper to him. Or perhaps he can see into the past, can separate history from myth, and know what I was and what he should be. And one more thing, though I should hesitate to mention it because it seems wild and desperate. I shall not balk, because that same thing became crucial to my own story as King James and Candlemas Packet rode the westerlies toward the Cape of Good Hope. My Sam, if you ever read this confession, which is more for you than any human being I can name, is it possible that once upon a time you too chatted with a pale albatross who can dance on icy gray gusts?

We were running slow under topsail through berg)’ bits, Candlemas Packet well away to our stern, our second or third day out of Gaunttown. Germanicus was an able captain, struggled to organize the crew and passengers straightaway (with Motherwell commanding our Volunteers) in order to keep the conditions belowdecks tolerable, the rationing sensible. We calculated we had food and water to make the Pacific Ocean. We supposed we could scout Africa for landfall, and if turned away could make a run for Australia. If that too failed, we had no better plan. We commended our fate to the wind and current. King James was a sturdy ice schooner built for a crew of twenty-four; we had more than one hundred and fifty people onboard, including children.

The weather came