What Became of the White Savage (11 page)

He started to feel hungry again, and headed back over to the burnt-out embers of the fire. Walking still with his right hand shielding his groin, his left on the injured ear, he eyed the few remaining bones where ants were feasting on the tiny scraps of meat still clinging to the bone. A pregnant young woman was lying under a nearby tree, weaving a length of vine into a kind of strap, humming quietly to herself. She paid him no attention as he picked up the bones.

His meagre feast over, he looked around. A group of about ten women and children had gathered and were starting to walk through the trees, in the same general direction the old woman had taken when she’d gone off with his clothes and his knife. Hoping to get a chance to retrieve his possessions, and having nothing better to do, he decided to follow at a distance. No one spoke to him. The group moved forward slowly, the pace set by the youngest of the children. Walking along in silence gave him a chance to reflect, to build up his hopes, even though he knew it was futile: perhaps they were making their way to a real village with a sizeable population and solid cob houses, or even just mud huts. They’d make him feel welcome, their chief would look after him. A village with a native who could speak a few words of English and could lead him to an outpost of the white man’s world: an isolated farm, a landing stage, a mission perhaps.

But there was no village. And no sign of his clothes.

An hour later, the women stopped by a fallen tree that must have been dead for some time. Using small stones picked up off the ground, they scraped away the bark of the rotting tree and cut through to the sapwood to reveal a network of winding tunnels, each with a yellowish larva squirming deep within. With great delicacy, they poked a twig into each tunnel to pull out the grub. The children waited patiently for their turn, gulping down the fruits of this harvest with obvious delight.

Narcisse kept his distance from the group, not wanting to draw attention to himself. No one offered him any of the grubs and he was spared the need to refuse. Feeling discouraged and with no plan in mind, he lay down on the sparse grass, his ear still hurting, and watched them enjoy their snack. Here in this part of the forest, he could feel a hint of humidity in the air, and it seemed less alien to him.

Why had he imagined there would be a village? Why did the absence of such a village cause him so much distress? Why did he grasp at the smallest of threads, let hope rise up in him again like the tide, ebbing and flowing, like a wave breaking on a rock, pulling back, swelling again, only to crash as before?

He needed to take stock, to think and decide. If he carried on like this, tossed around by events and by the incomprehensible whims of the savages, he would go mad. He had to come up with a plan to save himself, to get back to the coast and be rescued.

He’d never needed to make any decisions before. He was always told what to do, at home, at school, in his father’s workshop; he was expected to obey quickly with no questions asked. At sea, all that was required of him were strong arms and skilful hands for manoeuvring the sails and holding the tiller steady, a lithe body for slipping through the rigging, a good ear and a sharp eye on watch. It wasn’t his job to think of ways to solve problems; he and his shipmates had only to obey orders, the timeless commands aboard ship, fixed and immutable from one ship to the next, from generation to generation.

Nothing in his past had prepared him for an ordeal like this. The tales he’d heard aboard ship, the humorous accounts, the tragedies, were no use to him now. What wouldn’t he give to put himself in the hands of an officer, or a more experienced seaman? He’d been cast into utter isolation, thrown completely on his own resources. In this game that seemed to have no rules, every moment of the day, every choice he made, however insignificant could determine his chances of survival, the possibility of a successful return.

He had to hold firm. Hold firm and not give way to fanciful imaginings. There was no guarantee that the
Saint-Paul
would come back after Java. And if the ship were to arrive in the bay, his chances of being there at the right moment were small. He knew nothing at all about the area, he couldn’t be sure there were any white men living in these parts. He had no way of knowing whether or not these savages had had any contact with white men before him. If by some chance the schooner were to come back, and if he happened to be at the right beach at that moment, it would mean he’d end up spending about two weeks among the savages. It could be longer than two weeks, much longer.

Much shorter too, if they were to kill him, or if he died of hunger or thirst, of sickness or poisoning, or of despair. And then he made himself a promise, a solemn, absurd vow: he didn’t know how long this experience would go on, but he would come out of it alive. The force of this idea stunned him. Yes, he would survive!

Feeling somewhat calmer, he stood up, and with the trees around him for witnesses, he proclaimed: “I am Narcisse Pelletier, seaman on the schooner
Saint-Paul
.”

The women woke up from their long siesta and began to dig around in the ground, collecting tubers. Then, as the sun began to sink, they set off back through the forest. He followed them. His ear still hurt; he was beset by shooting pains and a stinging sensation all over one side of his head. He kept rubbing his temple, trying to allay this feeling.

Back at the clearing, the young men had dug a pit, and lit a fire of twigs and small branches. They covered the glowing coals with flat stones, on top of which the women arranged a bed of leaves. The bulbs they’d gathered earlier were arranged on the leaves along with a few small animals: birds or bats perhaps. Then they placed more leaves on top of these and covered the whole thing with earth.

How many of them were there? They all looked so alike: short, stocky, dark-skinned, curly haired; he found it difficult to distinguish any individual characteristics.

There was the old woman, of course. And the group of women, or rather mothers. They were eight in number, nine counting the pregnant woman. The youngest of them was breastfeeding her baby. He counted fourteen children under about ten years of age. They always played together, rarely venturing too far away from the women.

He counted seven men. The oldest, a man of about sixty, the one Narcisse had spoken to when they arrived, had spent most of the day beside the fire. He decided to name him Chief. The others seemed to be about thirty to forty years old, as far as he could tell. Narcisse recognised the one who’d come up to him when he was washing himself off at the water hole. He seemed sturdier than the others, more determined. He decided to call him Quartermaster on account of his build.

The men and women spoke little. The group of young people, whose ages were anything from twelve to twenty-five, made more noise. They didn’t mix with the children and stayed away from the adults. There were ten boys and six girls, but they didn’t all stay together the whole time. At times, the boys would go off to one side and play jacks; sometimes they would pair up for a game or to do a job of some sort, sometimes one of them would go off alone into the forest. A boy and a girl were sitting under a tree together, openly touching each other. Narcisse blushed when he saw the girl stroking the boy’s leg, her hand creeping up his thigh.

Nine women, seven men, fourteen children, sixteen young people: forty-six of them in all. He’d have to observe them carefully, work out who was in charge, understand the relationships between the men and the women, between brothers and sisters, fathers and children. It might be useful for him. He counted them up again on the sand, using twigs and stones. Even with the various comings and goings, he still arrived at the same total.

Chief, Quartermaster… he had to recognise them all individually. Thinking of names for them passed the time: he’d call this one Scarface, and that one would be Show-off, Broken Nose, and there was even one he’d call Kermarec after his shipmate on the
Saint-Paul
because of the way he walked. He wouldn’t worry about naming the women. But when the men went away, talked among themselves and came back, he was no longer very sure of who was who.

It was getting dark when a young savage came running out of the forest. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he hadn’t seen this one before. The new arrival didn’t even look at him, and went over to join the young people, even though he was clearly older and more broad shouldered than them. The boys gathered around him as he began to tell a story, punctuated with cries of surprise and approval. Kermarec and Quartermaster came over to listen too. The young man seemed, for all the world, like a wanderer returned from his travels, enjoying recounting his adventures. Will I have the same reception when I get back to my village? Narcisse wondered ruefully. He certainly couldn’t imagine himself naked, sitting in front of an audience of naked listeners telling his tales. He added another stone to his tally. With the arrival of Wanderer, that made forty-seven in the tribe.

The old woman came scurrying over to him, and gestured to him not to move. With small, precise gestures, she removed the salve from his ear, spat some water from the gourd onto the wound, and applied a new layer of ointment.

The young men went over to open up the pit that served as an oven, just as they had the night before. The men were the first to eat, and again when Narcisse tried to join them he was met with a sharp rebuff. In the gathering darkness he felt less embarrassed at being naked. Or perhaps he was just becoming used to it. He made another attempt, but this time, Wanderer, himself among those who hadn’t yet been served, stood in his way, giving him a menacing look. Narcisse didn’t have the energy to get involved in a fight; he knew what the outcome would be anyway. And who was there to stand up for him? He turned around and waited. After the men and women had eaten, the old woman brought him a piece of the meat. It was almost black; smaller, drier and tougher than the meat they’d eaten the night before. Afterwards, he was free to go and help himself to some of the charred tubers he’d eaten before in the forest. The meagre meal did little to stem his hunger and his ear was still painful.

The savages sang for a while – although he wasn’t sure their monotonous chanting could be called singing. It was a strange incantation, intoned in quavering voices, the strains punctuated with clicks of the tongue or jaw, the reedy voices of the women cutting through the men’s growling. Then, when it was time to sleep beneath the ink-black sky, they bedded down under flimsy shelters of foliage, one or two women and a clutch of children to each man, the youths and older girls a little further off in the forest.

He found the tree he’d slept under the previous night and lay down on the ground. The unexpected sensation of the light evening breeze all over his body was a reminder of the loss of his clothes. He broke off a few small branches and palm fronds and used them to cover himself. Because of the wound, he had to sleep on his right side, curled up in a ball. A feeling of being completely alone overwhelmed him. He felt himself begin to cry, gently, without a sound. The flow of tears soothed him, helped him to bear all the losses and misfortunes he’d suffered since arriving on the beach. It was the first time he’d cried since he was a small child – his father would beat him even harder if he ever showed any sign of weakness. But what blows could be harder to bear than this long ordeal, sufferings endured with no understanding of what was happening to him? No one heard his lamentations, as he moaned and sniffed like a small, wounded, abandoned animal. And as he wept, he drifted off to sleep.

He woke up shivering violently, his teeth chattering. He felt devoid of strength. He tried to get up, but dizziness overcame him and he had to lie down again. The pain in his ear had subsided, he didn’t feel hungry but he was cold and clammy with sweat, in the grip of a fever. Was it the water he’d drunk? The wound, or the salve the old woman had applied? Or was it the effect of black despair?

Curled up in a foetal position, he adjusted the fronds that were his only blanket and lay there trembling from head to foot. There was no one to help him.

The sun rose higher in the sky, but the rays that filtered through the branches did little to warm him. If he had fallen sick aboard the
Saint-Paul
, he would have dragged himself to the gangway to declare himself to the ill-tempered second mate. How he would have loved to hear the foul-breathed second mate uttering one of his nasty remarks, or declaring in his gravelly voice: “If you can walk as far as here, you’re fit to work,” a favourite dictum of his. The tactic of staying in the hammock and waiting for someone to come and get you was scarcely more effective: he’d witnessed the mate tossing an old hand out of his hammock and forcing him to go back to his post. He’d make allowances for the injured, but never the sick. And if by chance a sick man were to be granted a day or two’s rest, the second mate had little to offer in his medicine chest: a few bottles of powders from which he’d make his selection – at random some said – and mix up a vile potion. Narcisse fell into a restless sleep, hoping he’d wake up and find himself on the ’tweendecks.

It was mid-morning as far as he could tell when the old woman came to see him. Did someone care about him after all? She applied some more of the ointment to his ear with a few deft gestures, as before. Then she spread her fingers and passed her hands, palms turned down, over his body from head to foot, muttering indistinctly under her breath. Finally she picked up a handful of the sandy earth and let it run between her fingers spreading it all over his body. She repeated this several times, until his skin, glistening with sweat, was evenly coated with a fine layer of dust.

With half-closed eyes, fighting against the waves of fever that pounded against his temples, he made no effort to resist and let the old woman do as she wished.

She brought the gourd to his lips and he forced himself to drink. Then she spread a few more branches over his chest and legs and left.

He fell asleep again, the layer of earth covering his body affording him some protection against the sensation of cold.