“A fine idea. Gothamites are as aggressive about reading as about all their sport. Or, as my Christina says, the people of New York are as fine as they are rich.”
Most of my waking time on the ship was spent with Belial. The Chinese men were passed along to their buyers at a small port island where we made a brief stop for the purpose. Belial convinced the officers to move me into a comfortable berth on an upper deck. Though he did not say as much, I knew Belial would not want to make himself too conspicuous to the captain or the officers during a mission, and so he limited his society with them; his intrinsic need for adulation and interest kept bringing him back to me, and the fact that I knew who he was and what he was doing allowed him to talk freely. And talk and talk and talk. He spoke frequently about his wife, which in his mouth really somehow seemed fantastical, just as Davenport had warned me. I asked him if they had children and he said four daughters. “Alas, no sons to carry on my work, but, then again, there is nothing left to carry.” There were not many opportunities to interject my questions and thoughts because of his fluid and winding elocution, but at least, unlike with Davenport, I never felt obligated to keep up both sides of a conversation. Belial lectured, pontificated, boasted, and brayed. He would ask, “Do you know what I’m thinking?” and, after having to reluctantly admit I did not, he would not tell me the thought until a half hour later. From afar, this tendency in him seemed utterly obnoxious, but after being taken into his confidence I noticed that something changed. I could not help but feel enthusiastic to be the object of his general attention, even when he was especially self-important and obnoxious. The secret of despots and tyrants is that people enjoy dining with them.
We took our meals together; lounged and played cards in the common rooms together; sat on deck chairs on sunny days. He even told me his given name: Benjamin Lott. I only called him that once because in a feral voice he said, “Belial.” The weather, which had been mild, turned harsh and Belial began to appear less often. Strangely, I was not seasick even as we dipped and sloped. A new feeling settled over me. Now that I was suddenly without Belial’s frequent company, I was eager to talk to someone, anyone; the first mate had grown comfortable with me, a sailor thirty or thirty-one years old with a square jawline and half-moon eyes. I began to tell him stories from my stay in Samoa—without names, of course—stories about a white genius making his life among island natives as a sort of king or chief. He urged me to go on, and though I felt an indescribable and unexpected itch to tell every detail, even to confess why I had gone there in the first place, I knew I should not, and made an excuse to return to my berth. That was how close I came to throwing away discretion for the temporary glow of friendship.
When the sky grew wild, the ship had to tack and change course, and Belial appeared at my door with a tired, twitchy air. His head was covered with an oilskin hood used to keep dry above deck. I had not yet seen him look so distracted.
“The calendar,” he demanded.
“What?”
“I saw you scraping one out. The damned calendar you were carving from wood!” He stomped his boot against the floorboards as he spoke. His eyes bulged and his substantial lips and chin quivered.
“Oh. There.” My voice sounded meek and defeated in my own ears.
“Thank you,” he said with relief. I watched him carefully as he rummaged where I’d pointed, under my mattress, until he found it. “Have you been checking off the days?”
“Yes, since the very beginning of the voyage. There is little else to do at night.” Indeed, by this point I had read each of the few books in the ship’s library twice through, all but one of which I had read in the past (the downside of being a bookseller, at least the kind who reads).
We conferred about how long the vessel would be delayed, according to the members of the crew we had each consulted. “Let us put the worst case forward,” he said, studying my calendar, “and add four full days to our journey—why, that would return us to New York City on the twenty-seventh of June.”
“I believe that’s correct.”
“Splendid!” He checked the calendar again and found the same result, which expelled the tension from his face and voice. “Time to spare. Splendid indeed. You know, Fergins, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Would you like to read it?” He leaned forward with a smile that showed all his teeth. “Stevenson’s novel.”
“Truly?”
“This will be an historic moment for me as a bookaneer. The last book I can bring to the public before the wrongheaded changes in law set in. There is one thing more I’d like to do, something I’ve never done. I’d like to watch the pleasure I bring to a reader, the very first reader of the thing. I want it to be you.”
“You mean you’d want to watch me while I read the book?”
“Exactly,” he replied with haughty triumph. “Who else will read it on a ship like this? A sailor? I want to read the surprise and gratitude in your face as you become the first man on earth to bear witness to Stevenson’s final masterpiece. You saw that the poor exile does not have long in this world. I know you cannot resist such an offer. Not you, of all people. You cannot turn down serving an immortal part in the history of literature.”
After the initial dramatic surprise of his offer waned, I turned the idea over in my head. Then, you may not believe it, you may believe I am reporting someone else’s words, but I flattened my hands together and said: “I will decline, but thank you.”