The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston

Author:Wayne Johnston
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307375421
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2003-09-09T10:00:00+00:00

• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN •

EVERY DAY, HENSON SAT MOTIONLESS FOR HOURS ON A ROCK near Peary’s tent, staring out across the harbour, his hands on his knees, as though he was awaiting the arrival of yet another ship, another expedition led by someone more persuasive than Dr. Cook. Now and then he would jump up and go to the tent, presumably when Peary called to him, though I did not, by day, hear Peary’s voice. He carried things to the tent and carried things away, including enamel bowls whose contents he discreetly dumped in the water near the talus of the cliff. He washed Peary’s clothing and bed linen in a nearby stream and spread them out on the rocks to dry. The Eskimos regarded him with great deference and were quick to provide him with anything he asked for, especially if he said it was for Peary.

The two ships, moored together, rose and fell as one—one double-hulled, double-decked, double-masted vessel.

By mid-afternoon, the sky was such a pure deep blue I could sometimes see the stars. I thought it was just an illusion until I mentioned it to Dr. Cook, who said that at one time his eyes had been good enough to make out stars at this latitude and time of day.

“The anomaly of summer,” Dr. Cook called what in New York might just have passed for early spring. Here there were ten months of winter and two months into which the other three accelerated seasons were compressed.

Each time I breathed in, even on the warmest days, the air went down inside me like a gulp of ice-cold water, seeping through into parts of my body that I had never felt before.

Massive, melting chunks of ice littered the shore like the wreckage of some all-white fleet of ships.

The Eskimos, those who were well enough, worked ceaselessly in preparation for the winter. Wood was so precious in this treeless, scrub-less place that it was rare for them to light a fire at this time of year. They traded furs for wood, mystified as to why the whites would value something as commonplace as fur over something as rare as wood. Some spent their days salvaging wood left behind by other expeditions—abandoned shacks and rowboats, broken masts and spars, foot-thick planks like the ones that reinforced the Erik‘s hull.

Every day, the Eskimos and some of the crew took up the coast to the walrus grounds the paying passengers who had not gone ashore farther south. All morning, all afternoon, we heard the sound of distant rifle shots. According to Captain Blakeney, the sons of the backers shot everything that moved. They came back to Etah in whale boats sunk to the gunwales with the weight of furs and tusks. They beached their boats just as the sun was going down, then retired to their bunks, eating and drinking from the private stock they had brought along.

Every night in the captain’s cabin, Dr. Cook and I lay awake, talking, discussing the books I was reading.

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